Context No. 4225 of 4322 · John
Context · Reflection
John 7:6-15: in context
6Jesus therefore said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always ready. 7The world can’t hate you, but it hates me, because I testify about it, that its works are evil. 8You go up to the feast. I am not yet going up to this feast, because my time is not yet fulfilled.” 9Having said these things to them, he stayed in Galilee. 10But when his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly, but as it were in secret. 11The Jews therefore sought him at the feast, and said, “Where is he?” 12There was much murmuring among the multitudes concerning him. Some said, “He is a good man.” Others said, “Not so, but he leads the multitude astray.” 13Yet no one spoke openly of him for fear of the Jews. 14But when it was now the middle of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple and taught. 15The Jews therefore marveled, saying, “How does this man know letters, having never been educated?”
Jesus' brothers urge him to go up to the feast in Judea and make himself public, to show himself to the world. But Jesus answers, my time has not yet come; your time is always here. He will not be pressured into acting on their timetable or the world's expectations. He moves according to the Father's timing, not the urging of others, and so he does not go up publicly as they demand.
What stands out is Jesus' freedom from the pressure to act on others' terms. His brothers had their plan and their timing; the crowd had its expectations. But Jesus was governed by the Father's timing alone. My time has not yet come, he said, refusing to be hurried or managed by the agendas of those around him, however well-meaning or insistent.
We can feel pushed to act when others think we should, to move on their schedule rather than God's. Jesus shows the freedom of living by the Father's timing, not the crowd's. Not every urging to act, even from those close to us, is God's call to act now. Wisdom waits for God's time rather than bending to human pressure.
When others pressure me to act on their timetable and expectations, can I, like Jesus who said my time has not yet come, hold to God's timing rather than bending to human urging, discerning that not every push to act now is God's call?